Senior Navigation & Autonomy Engineer

Tocaro Blue; Forest Park (AL); On-site; USD 130,000 - 162,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity potential

401(k) with 4% matching

Health, dental, and vision coverage

Life and disability insurance

Generous PTO

Job summary

Tocaro Blue in Birmingham, AL, is seeking an experienced Navigation and Autonomy Engineer to design perception, tracking, and navigation systems for autonomous marine vessels. The role involves implementing multi-sensor fusion, SLAM, and global localization with GPS-denied operation in a fast-growing maritime tech company.

You'll work with a tight team of engineers to push the boundaries of marine autonomy, including real-time edge deployments, robust sensor fusion, and high-performance C++

Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, or related technical field.
• 7+ years of hands-on experience applying parameter and state estimation, dead-reckoning and localization, and sensor fusion to dynamic systems (graduate research counts if directly applicable).
• Proven track record through Master's thesis, dissertation, or commercial projects demonstrating mastery of both localization and target tracking.
• Expert-level C++ development backed by Python and/or MATLAB prototyping.

Responsibilities

• Design and optimize multi-object tracking systems for maritime situational awareness
• Contribute to real-time multi-sensor-multi-object fusion tracking algorithms
• Create vessel motion models to enhance object tracking using parameter estimation
• Develop Radar-based global localization and SLAM against reference cartography
• Deploy high-performance tracking and SLAM algorithms on real-time edge hardware using optimized C++ implementations
• Create robust sensor fusion algorithms for precise vehicle localization combining GPS, IMU, and signals of opportunity, ensuring real-time inference capabilities in challenging maritime conditions
• Build global path-planning and local obstacle avoidance techniques for over-the-horizon autonomous routing

Job description

Location: Birmingham, Alabama

Transform Maritime Autonomy with Cutting-Edge AI/ML

Are you an experienced Navigation and Autonomy Engineer ready to revolutionize marine technology? Join Tocaro Blue, where your expertise in perception, tracking, and navigation will shape the future of maritime perception and autonomous navigation.

With Tocaro Blue, as a Senior Navigation and Autonomy Engineer, you'll be at the forefront of developing the intelligent systems that will power autonomous marine operations. Working within an elite team of 5-7 engineers, you will architect and implement the next generation of our software products that support marine autonomy: multi-target tracking, sensor fusion (especially using marine Radar and EO/IR cameras), localization in GPS-denied environments, and path-planning.

The users of our perception software products include the developers of Unmanned and Autonomous Surface Vehicles (USV and ASV) supporting the US Navy as well as major marine electronic manufacturers (OEM) for recreational ADAS and autopilot applications. Whereas automotive automation like lane-keeping and driver assistance are becoming universal, the Marine environment poses unique challenges that are not yet solved. Tocaro Blue provides a rare opportunity for you to help define the autonomy roadmap for an entire industry. Your work will evolve from creating perception systems for situational awareness to developing obstacle avoidance systems, and ultimately full autonomous control systems for marine vessels.

What You’ll Pioneer

• Design and optimize multi-object tracking systems for maritime situational awareness
• Contribute to real-time multi-sensor-multi-object fusion tracking algorithms
• Create vessel motion models to enhance object tracking using parameter estimation
• Develop Radar-based global localization and SLAM against reference cartography
• Deploy high-performance tracking and SLAM algorithms on real-time edge hardware using optimized C++ implementations
• Create robust sensor fusion algorithms for precise vehicle localization combining GPS, IMU, and signals of opportunity, ensuring real-time inference capabilities in challenging maritime conditions
• Build global path-planning and local obstacle avoidance techniques for over-the-horizon autonomous routing

Required Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, or related technical field
• 7+ years of hands‑on experience applying parameter and state estimation, dead‑reckoning and localization, and sensor fusion to dynamic systems (graduate research counts if directly applicable)
• Proven track record through Master's thesis, dissertation, or commercial projects demonstrating mastery of both localization and target tracking
• Expert‑level C++ development backed by Python and/or MATLAB prototyping

Preferred Expertise

• Expert understanding of geometry, statistics, and state estimators
• Experience optimizing and deploying localization, fusion, and tracking models to edge computing platforms using C++
• Portfolio of personal projects or research solving complex real-world problems through software innovation
• Background in automotive or marine systems, robotics, or other autonomous vehicle development
• Passion for pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable with sensor fusion in challenging environments
• Design‑of‑experiment for perception and fusion system testing and evaluation

Why Tocaro Blue?

Competitive Compensation & Growth

• $130,000-$162,000 base salary with potential for equity in a rapidly growing company
• Comprehensive benefits: 401(k) with 4% company matching, full health/dental/vision coverage, life and disability insurance, and generous PTO
• Continuous learning through training programs and conference attendance

Innovation-First Culture

• Direct impact on defining the future of maritime autonomy
• Access to challenging real-world problems that push the limits of current Marine Autonomy capabilities
• Collaborative environment with top‑tier engineers and researchers

Work Environment

• Engineering office in Birmingham, AL
• Engaging fieldwork opportunities with monthly data collection trips to our Pensacola, Florida testing facility
• Work-life balance that supports both innovation and personal growth

Tocaro Blue, LLC is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Individual offers are based on skill and experience, geographic location, as well as role, responsibility, and leadership within the company, and other due diligence. Our hiring team will try to determine whether each candidate fits the job description and may choose, at their discretion, to redirect a candidate to another job offering that is more appropriate.

All employees must be eligible to obtain a U.S. Department of Defense security clearance. With few exceptions, this is restricted to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents (a.k.a. current Green Card Holders). Tocaro Blue LLC is not able to sponsor work visas nor permanent resident cards ("green cards") for this role.